IRVING, TX – VHA, the national network of not-for-profit providers, announced Tuesday that the VHA Central region, based in Indianapolis, has launched an initiative designed to eliminate serious, preventable patient safety errors from member hospitals.
The announcement came the same day, coincidentally, that the Department of Health and Human Services unveiled the Partners for Patients program, which will use data collection and health IT to help prevent medical errors to potentially save as much as $50 billion and as many as 60,000 lives over the next three years.
For the VHA program, a dozen hospitals in Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan and Ohio have joined in what's billed as "Target Zero" – an initiative sponsored by VHA's Central region and Virginia Beach-based Healthcare Performance Improvement (HPI) that specializes in "understanding human performance in complex systems."
"I've worked for a long time in the areas of patient safety and quality," says VHA senior director Christine Hoffman. "And I recognized that what commonly happens around patient safety is you work on these initiatives around patient falls, you work on initiatives around pressure ulcers, etc. But what's really important is to make sure you have a really great base in terms of your culture and supporting patient safety. That is what I saw Target Zero bringing to our members."
[See also: IOM study to identify 'productive path' for using HIT to boost patient safety.]
Health IT will be critical to the program's success. "We are analyzing data," says Hoffman. "We are looking at what that speaks to in terms of an organization. Certainly health IT can make information flow very well."
She adds, however, that "you also have to be certain it's not a double-edged sword." Oftentimes, "if you're not careful, and not addressing all the issues that have to do with disseminating information," a reliance on health IT could be counterproductive.
The following VHA Central members are participating in this two-year project, which will consist of face-to-face meetings, virtual learning seminars and individual coaching calls with HPI consultants and VHA staff:
- Akron General Medical Center, Akron, Ohio
- Allegiance Health, Jackson, Mich.
- Good Samaritan Hospital, Vincennes, Ind.
- MedCentral Health System, Mansfield, Ohio
- Memorial Healthcare, Owosso, Mich.
- Owensboro Medical Health System, Owensboro, Ky.
- Premier Health Partners including:
- Atrium Medical Center, Middletown, Ohio
- Good Samaritan Hospital, Dayton, Ohio
- Miami Valley Hospital, Dayton, Ohio
- Upper Valley Medical Center, Troy, Ohio
- The Christ Hospital, Cincinnati, Ohio
- Union Hospital, Terre Haute, Ind.
"This initiative isn't narrowly focused on preventing patient falls or increasing compliance with hand washing," said Craig Clapper, a founding partner and the chief knowledge officer of HPI, which has worked with more than 200 hospitals across the country, including many VHA members. "Instead, this initiative focuses on horizontal integration of high-reliability values and behaviors across an organization and achieving staff, leader, and physician accountability for those behaviors."
Through the implementation of the HPI process, healthcare organizations have realized significant reduction in serious safety events and have simultaneously experienced a reduction in liability claims. Organizations typically experience a 50 to 75 percent reduction in serious safety events and realize a return on investment at a rate of 10:1, officials say.
[See also: VHA introduces IT solutions and VAR program for hospitals.]
"VHA is committed to helping members improve patient safety and reduce serious safety events, and participating VHA member hospitals are committed to working on this because it is the right thing to do," said Patti Sweeney, executive officer over VHA Central. "The Target Zero initiative is designed to provide methodologies to improve patient safety across the healthcare organization and not simply in selected areas, such as the ICU or the OR. It impacts an organization's culture and engages all hospital staff in providing a safe patient environment."
